Art can evoke many emotions and in some cases the work of art has also experienced the consequences of this. Read the stories behind five damaged works. Sometimes for the sake of conceptual art, sometimes as a result of a bad date...
1. The Night Watch
In 1911, the Night Watch was attacked for the first time, by an embittered sailor who had roamed the streets for nearly three decades. He felt that his misfortune was the Empire's fault and sought revenge with his actions. He went over the string separating the artwork from the crowd on January 13 and stabbed the canvas with a knife. But, as if this were not enough, the work was affected a second time. This time it was an unemployed teacher who caused enormous damage on September 14, 1975. He used a bread knife to make large, zigzagging stripes across the bottom of the canvas. And was this all? New. In 1990 sulfuric acid was sprayed on the Night Watch. This time the guards intervened very quickly, who immediately threw water over it. Only the varnish layer was affected.
2. Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III
An example of a modern work once vandalized is Barnett Newman's Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III. In 1986 the work was cut by Gerard Jan van Bladeren. He was an unknown realist artist and was strongly influenced by the text 'Painting in a critical stage' by Carel Willink. Willink wrote about his distaste for the abstract in modern art. Van Bladeren, who had suffered from anxiety attacks and was paranoid for some time, saw abstract art as a plague and decided to take action. On March 21, he left for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and made four horizontal and four vertical incisions in the work with a box cutter. In 1991 the work was restored, which caused a lot of commotion. Many said the canvas had been destroyed twice: once with the knife and once during restoration.
3. Warhol
In addition to destruction in a museum, this also occurs in private property. For example, one Lindy Lou Layman destroyed a Warhol worth four tons after she was asked to go home by her date, lawyer Anthony Buzbee. Layman was tipsy, and when Buzbee called a taxi for her, saying she had had too much to drink, she refused to go. She hid in his house and when Buzbee found her she became aggressive. She pulled some paintings from the wall and poured red wine over them. She also flipped a number of statues. So there was a real Warhol between those paintings. Needless to say, this attorney didn't rest his case.
4. Erased De Kooning
Destroying art can sometimes also lead to new art. One day, for example, the revolutionary artist Robert Rauschenberg nervously rang Willem de Kooning's doorbell. After they had drunk a glass of whiskey together, Rauschenberg dared to ask a special question: whether he might be allowed to have a drawing by De Kooning, to erase it and present it as a work of art. De Kooning already realized that this work would shock the art world and thought long and hard. In the end, his answer was: “I don't like it, but I'm in. I understand what you are doing.” Then followed the selection of a good drawing. De Kooning chose a work that he would miss, but at the same time one that was difficult to erase. It became a drawing with pencil, charcoal and chalk. It took a month for Rauschenberg to finish erasing. The eraser owes its name to Jasper Johns: Erased De Kooning. De Kooning had correctly estimated the shock factor of the work, because this work of art strongly influenced the view of conceptual art.
5. Jeff Koons
Damage to such a work of art can of course also happen accidentally. A recent example of this is what happened in April this year with Jeff Koons' work Gazing Ball (Perugino Madonna and Child with Four Saints). The work is a copy of a painting by Italian Renaissance painter Perugino, with a blue glass ball in front of it. The audience was absorbed into the painting through this sphere. On the last day of the showing in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, one of the viewers got too close and touched the ball, which then suddenly burst apart. The painting and all visitors were unharmed.